2026 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualification
The 2026 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualification is an under-19 men's national football team competition that will determine the seven teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Wales in the 2026 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament.
Russia were excluded from the tournament due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, excluding hosts Wales, 53 teams entered this qualification competition, which consists of the Qualifying round played in September–November 2025, followed by the Elite round played in spring 2026. Spain received a bye to the Elite round and did not participate in the Qualifying round. Players born on or after 1 January 2007 are eligible to participate.
Format
The qualification consists of two rounds; both consist of several groups, which are played as single-round-robin mini-tournaments, with one team from each group selected as the host after the draw. Qualifying round: Apart from Spain, which received a bye to the Elite round as the team with the highest seeding coefficient, the remaining 52 teams were drawn into 13 groups of four. The 13 group winners, the 13 runners-up, and the best third-placed team will advance to the Elite round.Elite round: 28 teams will be drawn into seven groups of four. The group winners will qualify for the final tournament.Tiebreakers
In a group, teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :- Points in head to head matches among tied teams
- Goal difference in head to head matches among tied teams
- Goals scored in head to head matches among tied teams
- If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams
- Goal difference in all group matches
- Goals scored in all group matches
- Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above
- Disciplinary points
- UEFA coefficient ranking for the Qualifying round draw
- Points
- Goal difference
- Goals scored
- Disciplinary points
- UEFA coefficient ranking for the Qualifying round draw
Qualifying round
Draw
The draw for the Qualifying round was held on 5 December 2024, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:
- 2019 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
- 2022 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
- 2023 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
- 2024 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
|